[extropy-chat] on The Climate Change Question

[Amara Graps]

I found the 'Reason Online' site today, and input my following text
into the commentary that follows Baily's Greenhouse Hypocrisy Exposed:

http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/2005/06/greenhouse_hypo.shtml


It is certainly worth to continue learning and studying the Sun-Earth
system, in general, and the global warming in particular, in order to
be able to separate man-made causes from natural reasons, and to
estimate the costs. The climate change question is perhaps the most
crucial question today that science should answer for the
policy-makers.

As a person not working in the climate field, but as a scientist
(astronomer), nevertheless, I have listened to many scientific
arguments (pro and con). When I read detailed climate change reports,
all pointing to real man-made warming trends, within a short ~1/2-year
in the well-researched and close-to-mainstream press: _The Economist_,
_New Scientist_, and _Physics Today_, then I notice, because surely
these cannot all be the results of the scientists riding the gravy
train, as the skeptics claim.

I suggest for the readers to pick up:

1) The Economist: ''A Canary in the Coal Mine'', November 13, 2004.

2) Fred Pearce, ''Climate Change: Menace or Myth?'', New Scientist,
12 February 2005.

3) Judith Lean ''Living with a Variable Sun,'' June 2005 Physics
Today.

 From 1), you will read that the (very sensitive) Arctic _is_ warming,
and such a warming could have alarming consequences on global climate.
Are we sure that there is a man-made warming trend, though? Yes, if
you read in detail the next two references.

Reference 2) states the primary physics of what gases (for example,
CO2) in the atmosphere trap infrared radiation emitted by the Earth's
surface, which leads to a greenhouse effect, and the article shows the
increase of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere over the last 60
years. Increased atmospheric heat is the simple physical and chemical
result. The warming is real, but how does that compare to 'natural'
warming in Earth's history, due to variabilities in the Sun's output?

The third 3) reference describes the Sun-Earth energy flow in detail,
and what should be particularly interesting to readers of this subject
are the terrestrial responses to solar activity. The author Lean
writes (pg.37):

	''Contemporary habitat pressure is primarily from human
	activity rather than solar. The atmospheric concentration of
	CO2 has increased 31% since 1750. A doubling of
	greenhouse-gas concentrations is projected to warm Earth's
	surface by 4.2K. Solar-driven surface temperature changes
	are substantially less, unlikely to exceed 0.5K and maybe as
	small as 0.1K (points to Fig 3). Nevertheless, they must be
	reliably specified so that policy decisions on global change
	have a firm scientific basis. Furthermore, climate
	encompasses more than surface temperatures, and future
	surprises, perhaps involving the Sun's influence on drought
	and rainfall, are possible.''

Amara

-- 

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Amara Graps, PhD          email: amara at amara.com
Computational Physics     vita:  ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt
Multiplex Answers         URL:   http://www.amara.com/
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"The real malady is fear of life, not of death."   -- Naguib Mahfouz